Trying to Cover up a Workplace Romance

High profile people are vilified when word gets out that they are married and are having an office romance, Former President Clinton is a prime example. However, office romances often occur between married people in any walk of life.

Employees who are romantically envolved

We will now change our focus to employees who are romantically involved. This situation does not necessarily hold the power imbalance, but this workplace romance will have its own set of problems to overcome as well.

Wasting time and jealousy

The authority imbalance is not present when the couple who is dating holds a similar job, or a job that holds the same monetary and status level, yet if the couple is not careful, there would be office gossip, petty jealousy, or time wasted fraternizing instead of working.

Gossip and Jealousy

Again the gossip might circulate if the couple is trying to date discretely. In addition there could be squabbles where more than one person wanted to date one of the individuals who formed this romantic couple and fights have been known to break out.

Time wasted

At the same job where this examiner worked in Montreal, one girl was dating a guy on a different floor. For hours on end she was nowhere to be found. All the while, she was on the other floor giggling and joking around with her boyfriend instead of on her own floor at her desk doing her work.

We are talking about an 18 and 20 year old here, but nevertheless these things do happen. Eventually they were both told to keep their personal life personal and do their work or they would be fired.

Trying too hard to keep the romance secret

Tina was a waitress and dating the cook at the same Montreal restaurant. He told her from the beginning that he did not want it known he was dating her and that at work he would not show any outward affection towards her.

At first it seemed reasonable, but after awhile my friend started to feel ignored. Her boyfriend would joke around with the other girls and totally ignore her. It just did not seem fair to her. She tried to talk to him about it, but he would not change his behavior towards her. She started to believe he was ashamed of her and that was the real reason he ignored her and not the other waitresses. Eventually he changed jobs. The other waitresses told her they knew all along that the two were boyfriend and girlfriend because they were trying too hard to hide it.